dulce et decorum est
by soulofanangel
Summary: Carby - their relationship and their issues. **Chapter 2 finally uploaded.
1. Prologue

**dulce et decorum est**

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**Title**: dulce et decorum est

**Author**: Charli

**E-mail**: promisesanddisappointments@hotmail.com

**Rating**: PG-13? I don't know, each chapter will be different I'd imagine and it depends on what you're used to, this chapter could be quite depressing, especially if you get what it's on about, but it might just be a PG.

**Archive**: Of course, not that I can see why you'd want to. Just ask me first, please, I'd like to know where it is.

**Description**: Carby – if you hate them, the back button is in the far left at the top of your screen. Hit it now. Um, angst/romance probably.

**Spoilers**: None, apart from the fact that Carter and Abby are together. I'm British, I don't have digital, and I've only seen 'Chaos Theory' of season 9. Also, I'm trying to be spoiler-free this season.

**Summary**: Now, if I had any kind of comprehensive plan of where this seems to be going…but I don't. Only a bit. I just sit down and write, and then go and edit what has appeared on the screen. Carter and Abby: their relationship, their issues – both joint and individual.

**Disclaimer**: yada, yada, yada. I am neither pretty nor special, unlike tptb at WB and NBC obviously, so I own nothing. At all. Blah, blah, blah. I don't think they're really going to care about some student who has nothing better to do than make up weird stories using their characters.

**Author's Note**: This is written because I have nothing better to do with my life apparently. If you can be bothered to review, either here or by e-mailing me, I'd love it. All suggestions or constructive criticism are very, very welcome. Don't bother flaming because I really won't care. Credits for quotes etc. are at the end of each chapter.

To Carrie and Charlie. Carrie for providing the incentive to post this on ff.net by threatening to post it herself if I didn't; Charlie for her support and encouragement.

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**Prologue – nihil humanum mihi alienum est**

'I don't understand. I just don't seem capable of comprehending it, any of it, anything. I can't. I feel utterly helpless. I hate that. It feels so strange – so foreign. I've never experienced anything like that. The pain, the agony, the anguish; it all hit me so hard. I felt such panic, such hate, such, such distrust of the world. Of life.

'I know the world goes on – nothing changes because of me, I'm insignificant on that scale, and yet…I want it to stop, I want it to cease spinning. I want to get off. Just for a moment in time, so I can think, so I can stop functioning so fast. And I can't, and never will be able to. I don't want everything, everyone, to stop just because of me though, I'm not important. I don't want to be, the responsibility scares me, it is the unknown. I am nothing, and that gives me comfort.

'I'm looking for something. But first I have to search for the something I need to look for. I have to search my life, my heart. I spend my life wishing, some people would describe that as a waste. But sometimes, wishing is all you can do. It is all I have left. It is my only hope.

'Hope – there's another source of pain. To pray, to wish, to dream, to hope for something so much that it consumes you is a source of joy. But it is misplaced, unfounded, unreal joy – joy and happiness that does not last, can never come true. That is what happiness is.

'I'm drowning; I'm drowning in oxygen, in air, in life. There is so much air, and yet I can't breathe. I can't feel it, I can't. My head hurts when I try to think, and so I can't. I have no comprehension of it at the moment. It all means so much, it is beyond me and mine, it is too large to focus on. I can't concentrate. I can't.

'Was there ever a time it wasn't like this? Did that ever exist? What changed? How, why? Is understanding even possible? Or was it always the same? Did nothing ever happen, nothing ever change?

'In a way I feel special, and I'm not. I'm human, and I work so hard at being normal and I have failed once again. This has never happened before, it has only happened once. I do not see it ever happening again. I'm scared. Still scared, always scared.

'With or without me this would have happened. With or without you, with or without them. I think it was inevitable, and yet I wasn't prepared. I should have been. I should have done better. And I didn't, and I never do, and I never will. Never is such a definite word, and yet it relates to such an infinite period of time. That's me, definite and yet with infinite meanings, none of which I know, none of which I understand. Life still confuses me, it throws stuff which I can not grasp.

'I can't stop frowning, I can't smile because it hurts too much. I'm afraid of this, and I'm afraid of it changing, because I don't know if I can cope with something different now. This feeling is now my normality, and in a way that reassures me. Somehow. It makes no sense to me, I can't understand.

'I stand on my own. I must. I always have. But now things have changed, and I'm frightened. I am my own responsibility, only I have control. And now I don't, and can't. I can't. So much for independence, I've never had life without it and now it has gone. And it never gave me a warning that I'd pushed it too far, it never said goodbye. It deserted me when I needed it the most.

'I'm lost, I'm confused, I'm broken, I'm alone. Everyone has left me and I've pushed them all away. Along the line I stopped realising, stopped thinking, stopped knowing. Did I want this? I don't know, but I don't think I understood.

'I can still feel the pain, the swelling, the blood. It wouldn't go, nothing could stop it, and I had to cope. And I don't know if I did. I don't think I coped. I should have done, I should have done. I never can do that. I failed, again.

'I quit, I quit. I can't go on; I don't want to go on. It makes nothing better, it helps no one. There is nothing I can do, I quit. I don't know what to do, I don't understand. I can't cope. I can't.

'It's some kind of wonder; it's a form of magic. Just like that. No more, no less. I lost it so fast, and have mourned for so long. Grief is a black cloud, inescapable and everywhere present. But we would not want to lose it, because in the process we would lose our ability to love. While the pain is so stark, the joy is incomparable. I've fallen into heaven, and earth is not tolerable any more. Reality has hurt me. So cold and so true.

'Eating me, swallowing me, consuming me whole. I want an ending, I want a resolution to this. I can't cope with it, I can't. I'm breaking down. I can't break down, it will kill me. I must cope, I must be strong. But I'm not. I can't be.

'There is a wall. It looks so thin, so frail. It appears like net with sunlight glancing through. And yet it's thicker than concrete, stronger than steel. I can see all that happens, and I can't reach it. I try, I try so hard. I've tried so hard and for so long.

'I'm done, I'm done. It's over, I'm over, I'm through. There's nothing left for me to do. I don't think there's anything left for me here. And yet I can't leave. There are ties so strong they feel like iron chains pulling me back, not letting me out. Escape is impossible, I don't even think I want it. 

'I relax, I open. I lose it and I cry. I cry and I lose it. That is what this means to me. It was everywhere, and it is everything. It happened so naturally, and it felt like so much a euphoric, drug, high. Nothing this good can be real or true. Yet it was. It seemed to be. It even is.

'It was everywhere, all around me, on top of me and smothering me. Under it I writhe, I faint, I collapse. I lose reality, and I gain this. I am in another place. One with no connection to here. And yet I come back every time, I always come down. Always. It enters me and I am engulfed. I feel such an extreme.

'I've been there and I've done that. I don't know what to do next. Everything seems to be in limbo – my life, my relationships, even my feelings. In a way, my emotions seem to have been numbed, I can't feel them properly. I feel so distant from it all, nothing can connect properly. Scientifically I'm in shock, and yet I'm not. I know what has happened and I accept it. I just can't feel it properly, and I just can't understand. On the outside looking in upon myself – again.'

The listener leaned back in the red armchair watching the speaker, focusing solely on them to the exclusion of everything else. This was a world where just the two of them lived, where there was nothing that could come between them. The big, deep brown eyes of melted chocolate seemed to reflect every emotion, every intensity, of the other player in the game. The speaker continued to talk, the listener continued to listen, and all emotions were spoken aloud, made real in the still air which filled the space around them.

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**Author's Note**: If you don't get who's talking or who's listening, and what is happening, good. You're not supposed to. It should become slightly clearer as the chapters go on – virtual ice cream sundae for the first person to guess everything right!

The title of this fic, 'dulce et decorum est' is, of course, Latin. Literally translated it means 'it is sweet and proper'. You will probably have heard of the WWI poem of the same name. This fic is _not following that poem, I've just used the phrase because it seems to fit this story. All titles of chapters will be in Latin; I love the language and think it always sounds so 'nice'. I'm going to put the translation of them at the bottom of the pages. The title of the prologue, 'nihil humanum mihi alienum est' means 'nothing human is alien to me'. It does make sense in relation to the prologue. Come on, think…!!!_

Again, review please! If people like this I will write more chapters – not in this style – but I won't be able to until next weekend anyway, I have a lot of university work to do this week.


	2. Chapter 1: amor numquam prior mansit

**Chapter 1**

**Disclaimer: I would if I could…**

**Spoilers: None******

**Rating: PG I guess, nothing much here to shock anyone.**

**Summary: "This time I don't know if I want my negativity to win, this means so much to me."**

**Author's Note: Um, I'm grovelling because of the delay in this. Really I am. Many, many apologies. Here's Chapter 1, from Abby's Point of View, set either before or after the prologue. Any other details about me or the fic as a whole are written above the prologue. Other notes at the end, but I'm just going to say please review if you have *anything* to say about this story.**

To Kate, Klip, Kate and Kitty for reviewing. Also to Carrie and Anna for the same, but they have to go in a new sentence because their names spoil the alliteration of all the 'K' names ;-)

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**amor**** numquam prior mansit **

"Stop thinking," comes the groggy early morning voice from the pillow next to mine. "Your brain activity wakes me up."

I grin into my pillow, burying my face in its depths of softness so he won't see me smirk. Staring at him wakes him up every morning – I know I should stop doing it, we both need as much sleep as possible with our shift work, but I want him to be there with me. I miss him when he was asleep; he is so close but isn't there with me. So near and yet so far, a phrase which covers much of our relationship. It produces a physical ache almost greater than the one I suffered in our first months together when we were truly physically apart. I can't smirk as well as he can, but six months with him and I still wake up smiling. I've never been happy in the mornings, I'm not a morning person. It is as much as I can cope with to sleepwalk to the kitchen and put the kettle on for coffee, but with him I want to be alive every moment to feel it.

I feel his weight move on the mattress as he rolls over to face me. I half move my face off the pillow to look up at him. He is lying on his side, his head propped up on one arm, looking down at me, a gleam in his eye. I know he is going to get me for waking him up, and I grin back at him.

"Watcha going to do 'bout it then?" I murmur. 

"Oh, I'm sure I'll think of something," he says, grinning down at me. I close my eyes, and focus on not smiling but I can feel the corners of my mouth lifting without my consent. I can feel the heat of his breath coming closer and I wonder whether I will ever tire of this, of us, of him. I think not – but I've thought that before. Yet, this is different. This is real, this is true, this is 'it'. This time I am sure.

His lips descend upon mine, and the bolt of electricity which has always been there between us hits me as strongly as it ever does. My world suddenly shrinks to encompass only me and him; only our connecting lips and our tongues mingling and battling. There is nothing else. It is at times like this when I remember what true happiness really is; when I remember what it is to forget all my troubles and the outside world and only know what brings me joy.

All of a sudden, without any warning, he lies back on his own pillow and turning my head towards him I see his face smirking, then all of a sudden becoming serious.

"How was yesterday?"

"What?"

"Abby."

"Um. I don't know. Fine, I guess."

"Abby."

Despair and exasperation in equal measures tinge his voice now, but to be honest I can't do this right now. I'm not sure I'll be able to do this later, but the moment has gone and despite my love for him and all he does; now I need to leave him. My joy in the morning light has gone, and I don't want to face this. I need to physically get out of here. I need to escape this.

"I'm going to make coffee. Want some?"

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The comforter is laid out smoothly on top of the duvet; almost as if this was a show room. The room seems awkwardly lacking in humanity, as if every human emotion and connection with this room had been severed and removed. In a way, that might be a good thing. I want to forget our conversation this morning, or rather the conversation he tried to have and I ran from. I need to forget all that. But I know he won't let me – he wants me to deal with this, to face it. And to achieve this he's left me, I heard the door slam behind him as he walked out. He wants me to sort it out; he wants me to have no distractions. And this time he wants me to do it by myself, but this time I want him to do it for me. How typical. And how I hate it when I think he is right about what I need to do and I am wrong. 

I press my face up against the window, squishing my nose into a blob and creating breath marks all across the glass – I know he's leaving, but I want to see him for as long as possible. Walking out the door, the biting cold of a Chicago winter hit him in the chest, he almost felt the blasting change of temperature punch his lungs; I can see him huddle further into his coat. The gate creaked behind him as it always did; he turned to close it as he always did. I back quickly away from the window. It's stupid, but I don't want him to see me gazing after him, I don't want to appear like a moony 13 year old staring after her first love, however much my emotions might mirror hers. I think he saw me though, there's a slight uplift to his lips as he turns back to the road again that wasn't there when he walked out of the apartment.

I can see him walk down the road and I stare after him, seeing nothing else. The rain falls in heavy grey sheets from the sky; 'pathetic fallacy' I think wryly, memories of English Literature classes returning to me. As a literary technique I had thought it rather obvious, not subtle enough to convey emotions powerfully to my heart rather than my brain; yet in reality I find the matching of the weather to my mood is oddly comforting. Perhaps because it makes me feel no-one will be too happy today with the downpour. I can be such a bitch. And with that thought I'm back in the cycle of self-hatred and self-pity that is so normal for me. The cycle Carter wants, needs, me to escape from. The cycle he can't break for me, I have to kill it myself.

My memories are hazy, my recollections and mental imprints of the night, the last night of my world as it was, are without any form of clarity. Even if I verbalised it in words of one syllable, I still don't think he could understand how I feel and why it is so. I don't think he can, but deep down I know he could. For he gets me, and he completes me.

Could I fall any further? Any faster? Any harder? What have I done? To me, but not just to me. To him, to the one I love, to my reason for living. How could I do this? Why have I done this? What self-destructive, insuppressible urge inside me drowns out all my love for him and his for me and forces me to destroy it? 

The queue for hell forms behind me.

As I enter the bedroom again to get dressed before I leave for work I realise what is on the radio. A song about love – but they're all about love really. It's a song about being dependant upon someone, about always being there for someone no matter what, about running after someone when they need you and can't accept that. It's a song about me and Carter. All love songs are now.

_"_Tonight I'm tangled in my blanket of clouds__

_Dreaming aloud._

_Things just won't do without you, matter of fact_

_Ohh ohh ohhhhh, I'm on your back_

_I'm on your back_

_Ohh ohh ohhhhh, I'm on your back"_

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The lounge door closes after him; at the click of the latch the air thickens and I can feel my back stiffen. Mentally cursing furiously the way I can feel his presence and his mood with every nerve ending, I force my back muscles to relax. Ignoring the tension of the atmosphere I stare fixatedly at the old, marked wooden side, refusing to acknowledge his appearance in any way. I can feel his eyes boring holes into my shoulder-blades; even without seeing my face I know he can read my every mood, every emotion. My façade is up, and I'm determined to maintain it this time, even in front of him. At home he can see in to my depths, and I let him; but not at work, not where anybody else might see me and notice.

"Abby."

At the sympathy in his voice, his need for him to know how I'm feeling subjected to his concern for me, I can tell this conversation is going to be hard for me. I want to avoid it, but I don't want to run from him anymore. It hurts him, and I hate doing that. But it might hurt me more to stay here. It might hurt him more if I stay here and talk to him, and that I can't do. I physically am not capable of hurting him now, he means too much to me. I don't know whether to run this time or not. Maybe this doubt is a progress for me.

His eyes lock in upon mine; I have to force myself to face him and I immediately feel the connection between us. It is unbreakable, like iron chains binding us to each other. My thoughts are not my own any longer, though really they haven't been for months. He sees them and drags them out to be shared, like everything else, between us. And if he hadn't willingly done the same with his own I would have left him, run away and gone long ago. But he does, and so I can't complain when he reads my mind. I know I need it. I know I need him.

"Will you talk to me now?"

"I don't know."

"I guess I should be grateful you haven't run away yet."

"I'm sorry. Please, John. You know how difficult this all is for me."

"It's difficult for me as well."

"I know. I just…I want you to be here with me, but I want to escape it myself."

"You want me to face it for you so you can run away?"

"That's not what I meant. You know that."

"I do. It's…Abby, you need to resolve this on your own and then talk to me. I can't do this for you, it's killing me."

"I'm sorry."

"You always are. I'll see you later then; I need to get out of this right now."

"Please, John, don't...no. Damnit."

The latch catches again, but the sound it makes this time is of the quick rush of somebody to leave a situation, a place, that they hate. Not the sound of somebody coming in to find something, to resolve something.

The song from this morning is on the radio. The melancholy and the feeling that the love will never be returned, will never work is there, reflecting me and Carter right now. This love is different, it's stronger than ever before, but I don't know if it is enough, and I don't believe it will cope with this. We're throwing too much at it, and my negativity is beginning to defeat it. But this time I don't know if I want my negativity to win, this means so much to me.

_"If you walk out on me, I'm walking after you_

_If you walk out on me, I'm walking after you_

_(If you walk out on me, I'm walking after you)_

_Another heart is cracked in two_

_I'm on your back"_

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The roof. It's always the roof. The roof or the river. Somewhere in the open, somewhere completely unenclosed, without rules or restrictions. Somewhere we can both be free and ourselves without the need to act for the rest of humanity. Morbidly, I think that both of our places are spots where we could kill ourselves if we wanted to. Why have my thoughts gone in this direction? My self-destructive need controls me more than I realised before I met him, before now when I don't want to be destroyed. 

I hear the door close, and I step away from it, looking for him, scanning the view. He's leaning against the railings, staring at something which must be fascinating and utterly absorbing the way he's ignoring me. My fault. Always my fault. I've driven him to this, I've forced him to hurt me and in the process hurt himself.

"I never wanted to know," I whisper, admitting he was right. "I wanted to pretend it never happened. I thought – I hoped that if I didn't say it, it might mean it wasn't true. I knew it wasn't going to change anything, but it was the only way I could deal with it. John – you've changed me, and that's made me more scared than ever before. I'm not sure that I can live life when believing in it."

Without turning round he speaks to me, soothes me.

"We can only ever try." 

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I love his Jeep. It's so him; so few people can have one and not seem different, set apart, from the rest of the world. But John loves his Jeep and as I love him I love his Jeep. I love everything that comes with him, everything that is a part of him and who he is.

I lean forward to switch the radio on – we don't need to fill the silence, our silences are comforting on their own. But right now I'm worried that he's not sure, and I need to fill the air to escape the obsessive and unending pattern of my thoughts. This song must be following me.

_"If you'd accept surrender, I'll give up some more_

_Weren't you adored?_

_I cannot be without you, matter of fact_

_Ohh ohh ohhhhh, I'm on your back"_

Fated. In a way it is comforting, in a way terrifying. This love will always be here, but I will never be able to escape from it.

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**Author's Note: OK, well again, apologies for my delay in getting this up. The title for this chapter, 'amor numquam prior mansit' translates as 'love never lasted before'. The song used throughout, that appears to be following Abby, is the Foo Fighter's 'Walking After You', used in the X-Files movie 'Fight the Future'.**

Kitty got the virtual ice cream sundae last time for guessing the prologue was taken from a therapy session, but if anyone can guess who was in therapy, why they were there, and when the prologue was set – and also, what the issue is Abby and Carter are trying to talk about in this chapter, you can get the next one.

Any comments, suggestions or constructive criticism, please hit me with them. Reviews are manna from heaven.

~Charli


	3. Chapter 2: torquerunt somniores

**Summary: **arguments, angst, addictions, abortions, apathy

**Disclaimer:** sometimes I can get away with owning my ER videos, but that's only when someone doesn't tape over them.

**Rating:** PG-13; there's naughty language and dark themes. Whoo!

**Author's Note**: Yeay, chapter 2. Don't all cheer at once ;-) Yup, it's about four months late. Apologies for that, major, big-time grovelling from me. Real life kept getting *really* pissed off with my avoidance of it, and then my laptop's hard drive corrupted – taking with it the draft version of this chapter, the plan for this fic and everything else on there. Yeah, it sucked big time. Also, I then changed part of my plan for this, so working out what the changes to the plot were going to be took a while. And I'm just dis-organised.

Biggest possible gratitude to Anna for keeping on nagging me about this, otherwise the world would never have seen it. Also for being the world's most incredible beta, and so making it vaguely fit for public viewing.

To Kitty for particpating in mutual 'forcing ourselves to write even though we believe we can't' sessions.

And to those who reviewed, with all my heartfelt thanks.

~*~*~*~

**Torquerunt Somniatores**

~*~

_Sleep will not come to this tired body now_

_Peace will not come to this lonely heart_

_There are some things I'll live without_

_But I want you to know that I need you right now_

_I need you tonight_

~*~

The couch is battered and torn, the table scared from years of night-long coffee marathons. Jags run across it, reminders of late night screaming battles with thrown glass and broken crockery and Richard. And yet I don't want new ones, don't wish for perfect ones to symbolise a supposed new turn in my life. I like the memories; I like the marks in time. I don't like change. The old-ness of the furniture makes it comfortable, moulded to me and my life. Well, at least until the springs start poking through into our asses.

The glaring red neon light of the VCR tells me that it's 5.13am. Great. We have to be up to get ready for work in just over an hour. It also means that I've been curled up on the couch seeking solace from reality for over an hour. And as it's the middle of February in Chicago, I stopped being able to feel my feet a while ago, and I think I'm now numb to the cold. It might be an idea to go back to bed to try to get some warmth in my blood before I get up and use all the hot water – again.

Standing in the doorway I feel the tension ease slightly from my chest as I glance at the faded watercolour in the darkness spread out on the bed. He's a light sleeper, but then so am I. In that we're well matched, I guess, at least in the sense that we know how to restrain any sound from penetrating the restless subconscious of our partner beneath the duvet. Standing in the doorway and staring at him crushing the pillows and his arm reaching into the cooling space I vacated 60 minutes ago I feel an aching yearn in my heart for him. He strains to surround me and hold me, protect me from the world and our conscious existence. I need him and I hate that. It's my greatest fear made real and breathing.

I thought about leaving the apartment, giving up on sleep for tonight, walking out into the devastating cold Chicago could offer me for solace right now. But I knew he would hear the door click behind me, knew he would hate me to go out now. So I didn't. For his sake I didn't run from this place and numb myself with the ice age outside. I compromised on a nicotine hit in front of a black and blank TV screen, allowing my thoughts to drift into a similar state of nothing-ness as that settled before me.

Sighing, I slip back beneath the thickest duvet I have ever owned. Bought by him, supposedly to keep himself warm, but I know it was because of the way I shivered when waking up in winter. Knew he bought it to look after me, to save me from the world. I try to move everything as little as possible, to hardly touch the duvet as I slide underneath it, to prevent my cold skin from touching his warm arm as I know that would wake him. I try to keep my coldness away from him, to protect his warmth from how dark it can get, even though he knows it is there, knows the temperature of the atmosphere has changed, even if only by half-a-degree.

The darkest hour is just before dawn. Or that's what they say. Myself, I often think that it **is** dawn. Sure, it might be pretty, and the colours can be incredible, but the fundamental pessimist that I am refuses to see the joy everyone else seems to find in welcoming another day. Another day where anything could go wrong, where any old or new problems could appear to screw with my life. Who really wants to be up with the sun when they can shelter behind enveloping darkness?

A drowsy murmur comes from the tousled head behind mine, resting gently on the same soft downy pillow. I recognise the dreamy reverberation of his voice as the sound he makes when half asleep in the morning, and I pray desperately that he'll slip back into that land of hopeful flickering images and visions, away from me and away from us.

"Can't you sleep?"

"I'm fine, nearly asleep. Go back to sleep yourself."

"You're lying." Suddenly his voice has become more alert, I feel a gentle shift in the mattress as he turns his weight towards me. I retreat into myself, feeling my soul cave in upon my stomach and close the doors, locking the iron bolts and remembering to slip on the chain.

I hear a soft, moaning, sound which seems to come from another room, another existence – maybe the flat next door or maybe the one above us. Waves of a sound that hurts in agonising, halting and stuttering breaths. Travelling through my brain with the roar of a plane taking off, speeding above the recommended limit towards where it can crash with the most crippling and wrecking effect. It seems to draw closer to me and the blindingly white flash of realisation of what it is hits me hard in my chest, with a heavy thud upon my heart.

It's me. I'm crying. In front of John. And it's at least 10 minutes too late for me to run to the bathroom and turn on the taps.

Fuck.

~*~

_She comes to me like an angel out of time  
As I play the part of a saint on my knees  
There are some things I'll live without  
But I want you to know that I need you right now___

~*~

"You ok Abby?"

"Hey Abby, how's it going?"

"Carter keeping you awake is he?!"

"You sure you're alright Abby?"

"Go on break Abby, you can't collapse in front of patients!"

Abby, Abby, Abby. You look like crap and you're acting like a psychotic bitch with her worst ever bout of PMT.

True enough. They don't need to keep saying it though – I know it's true; I don't need it continually pointed out to me, thanks all the same.

Though at least if I had PMT I'd be grateful right now. And I'd have a legal excuse for ruining other people's lives. I should have learnt the last time: my decisions don't make anything less complicated. Ever.

"Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation," says Susan with a laugh as she walks into the lounge at 11pm in the middle of my shift. I'm not asleep, I'm not sure I remember what sleep feels like right now, but my limited supply of energy and care about life has completely run out (,) and right now even opening my eyelids, let alone moving from the sofa, takes more effort than I'm willing to expend for the rest of my life. I wonder if this is how Maggie felt during her depressive periods? If it was anything like this, I'm beginning to sympathise with her a lot more than I ever thought I would.

"I'm not asleep... but that doesn't mean I'm awake."

"When did you last get a decent night's sleep? I'm beginning to worry about you and Carter – you both look like the walking dead all the time."

"Sleep depresses me."

It's normally easier to function at work. More broken people to hide among. I don't stick out with quite such a glaring neon sign and siren blaring over my head as I do at other times. That doesn't seem to be happening today – as well as all the comments from 'concerned' co-workers, Susan is now looking at me with the expression on her face even more worried than when she walked into the lounge. Something tells me I'm not going to be able to convince her that everything in the garden is rose-y today.

"Want to go get a coffee?" she asks. She means: 'want to talk about it?'. To which my answer, strangely enough, is no. But I do want a coffee. Or six. And I can't face another cup of the brown hot water from the machine that Weaver keeps insisting is 'coffee'.

"Yeah, but I've been on break for ages, Weaver'll kill me if I take much longer. Lets go to the vending stand – I've probably got time for a cigarette before she rounds up the troops to find me."

Carter stares at me as we go outside – he knows I'm taking a cigarette break, and his eyes bore into me, letdown. He doesn't appear to want me to know that I'm upsetting him, and he turns away as we make eye contact. He's said what he thinks and what he wants; I can't really get pissed at him for being passive-aggressive. He's not, I am. I always am, it's part of my nature and however much I hate myself when I catch myself acting like that, I can't prevent it, I've tried. Hell, I've tried. And it pisses me off that he seems to feel he has the right to disapprove of any of my actions anyway. I know I said I'd quit but… I said a lot of things; we've both said a lot of things.

Many things, which reminded me why I always tended to avoid communication in a relationship. It's so much easier when they don't understand you and can't make you vulnerable. Communication, ah yes, that. Never one of my skills; always the reason for the collapse of every relationship I've been in. I do like it when things don't change.

~*~

_She sat in the bathroom and stared at the cold white tiles, the walls that used to be a __colour__, the dirty glass in the mirror of the cabinet. Strange how in a time like this she wanted to put 'clean bathroom cabinet' on her latest to-do list. That should be way down her list of priorities. But she'd never claimed that her priorities were in the right order._

_39 seconds … 40 seconds … 41 seconds … 42 seconds …_

_She refused to spend the next 2 minutes and – 17 seconds – counting the movement of the skinny black second hand of her egg timer. It had taken her long enough to find the thing. She'd wanted to find out last night, before Carter got back from his shift, but she'd been forced to wait to ask him where her egg timer lived. Apparently he'd been the one to use it last – 2 months ago. He'd been confused why she wanted it, she doesn't like eggs, but she'd pretended she'd felt like one then. And been punished for lying by having to make herself eat one. A memory which (that) quickly brought nausea rising up her throat. _

_To defeat the sickness sweeping through her she stared at the glass even more fixatedly. The smudge just above the bottom right corner of the left panel of glass was huge. She glared it at, taking out all her grievances with the world on this one mark. It didn't stand a chance. Picking up a scrubbing brush from the side of the sink, which wasn't exactly clean either now she looked at it, she rubbed furiously at the smear. She was stuck in here for the next – 2 minutes and 27 seconds, she might as well try and get some cleaning done. It wasn't going to get done for a while otherwise._

_She heard him leave for work, it was a rare morning when she didn't go out to kiss him goodbye. But this was a rare morning. Hopefully a unique one. The soft footsteps, surprising light considering how tall he was, paused outside the door._

_"Abby?"_

_"Hmm?"__ Did that sound relaxed enough? __Normal__? Not stressed or worried?_

_"Everything ok?"___

_"Sure. You going in now?"_

_"Yeah.__ Your shift starts at 12, right?"_

_"Yup.__ Clear the board for me." She was impressed with herself there. Almost everyday banter. It seemed to reassure him anyway._

_"I'll try. Bye Abs."_

_"Bye."_

_The door closed softly behind him, the latch just catching as it swung to. She'd never heard him slam a door. He just wasn't the type. Unless something unbelievably calamitous and infuriating and earth shattering happened. The Carters weren't the type of family to slam doors. Not that she'd ever done it as a child either. It probably wouldn't have been much use against bi-polar disorder. Maybe she should have tried it though – she must have tried everything else._

_Terror.__ She _recognised___ it; terror and worry were two best buddies she knew far too well. The kids at the back of the class who were always creating trouble and who you could never ignore because of the amount of noise they make._

_To focus on something, anything, else she started trying to work out what else should be on her latest to-do list. Shopping, definitely grocery shopping. The milk's expiry date had said yesterday, but she drank black coffee and Carter managed to force some down his throat this morning. So: milk, what else? Bread probably, butter was a good thing to have in, she needed to check the amount of tea bags left, she knew there was a new jar of coffee somewhere. She'd never run out of that. And maybe some fruit? What fruit did Carter eat? Bananas, everyone ate bananas._

_Grocery shopping, clean bathroom – especially cabinet… what else? Laundry? She didn't know, couldn't remember. Couldn't think to make herself remember._

_She wasn't going to be able to think of anything else in the next – 2 minutes and 1 second. _

_Pros and cons. Wasn't that what she was always told to do when trying to be objective about a situation? Why it's a good thing, why it's a bad thing. Contrarily, going against the world on purpose, she thought of bad things first. It was more in her nature anyway._

_She had always been good at thinking about why things were bad. Trying to make a list of why this was the worst thing that could ever happen to her she came up with 6 reasons without any problems. And 1 more possible._

_26 seconds left. She should try and list reasons why it's a good thing. There's surely reasons why it's a good thing. There must be._

_A lightbulb flickered above her head._

_One reason it's a good thing. One… that's better than none, right? It could be worse. And there's bound to be more, she wished she could think of them now though._

_Damn, the timer went off. She forgot how loud it could be; she hardly ever used it. It's not like either she or Carter were Cordon Bleus or anything._

_Hastily she reached out to thump into silent oblivion, a massive purple bruise smearing across the sound waves. A short, sharp gasp in of air with which she checked she was still breathing. And then she had to turn to look at it, focusing every thought on the movement of her muscles 180˚ to look at the little white stick on the windowsill. Such an innocent looking object. Appearances are so often deceptive, maybe the only truth her mother had ever told her._

_She glanced down._

_Positive.___

~*~

"I'm screwed up as well." He says it like it's a bond we have, like we should be grateful. Like he's the same. And I don't know how to tell him I'm not.

"Yeah," I hesitate with a grin, and he pretends to swat at me. I need to try and explain this – I need him to understand. I don't deserve him to, but I need it. "But in a different way. I'm fundamentally screwed up at the bottom of my mind – always have been and always will be. You're screwed by circumstances and life; but having been okay before you could be okay again. Deep down, beneath it all, at the core you're a decent, safe, guy. No one could say that about me."

"Well you do lack one of the main essentials for being a guy."

"Carter!"

"I just…I don't really want to deal with this right now Abby. Can't we have one evening, one night together, when it doesn't all go wrong and we can be a normal, happy couple?"

It sounds like such a simple request, but I can't do it. I don't know what normal is. I could be more patient; I should be patient. I've never been good at doing what I'm 'supposed to do' though – so I snap.

"Well, we're not a normal happy couple are we? We never were. We can't be."

Why do I do this? Why the hell do I always, always do this? I must be the most masochistic person ever – do I want him to give up on me, or something? I know I'm testing him, pushing him as far as I can to prove that there's a point to us, but in my deepest fears I think he won't pass, and that scares me so much I choke sometimes

"Do you really think that? Do you really think that, Abby? Because if you truly believe that we can never be happy together, then what the hell am I doing trying to piece us together?"

"Don't throw that in my face! I never asked you to try and fix us, I'm quite happy being broken!"

I almost roll my eyes before he's said anything, but catch myself just in time. Give him a chance, I force myself, give him a chance to at least say it before casting it and him aside with cynical and embittered scorn. Anyway, he's the one with a right to be angry, remember?

He's sitting in his chair, he has a chair, I never realised that before. That scares me. He looks sad, worried, upset by me and what I've said and who I am. I can't roll my eyes at him now, it's not fair, he's still here, he's the perfect guy and I've spent the majority of the past two years screwing that up. So, as he opens his mouth as if to speak I force myself to look slightly ashamed, fed-up with myself, wishing I could un-say and un-think the past three minutes. But he doesn't say anything, I guess he thinks he might as well put his responses to my outbursts of pessimism and defeatism on a cd and press repeat in these scenes between us. I see his point. Instead, he turns to his coffee for solace. And I wish I could provide the same comfort for him.

~*~

_I steal a kiss from her sleeping shadow moves  
Cause I'll always miss her wherever she goes  
And I'll always need her more than she could ever need me  
I need someone to ease my mind  
But sometimes a someone is so hard to find  
_~*~

The razor in my hands reminds of the times I used to take Maggie's from the bathroom during her depressive phases. The three crystal sharp blades waiting to slice delicate flesh and pour blood out to drown souls in. 

I'm not thinking as I move my arm up my legs, my mind wandering to black expanses of nothing, a place they like for the quiet and the familiarity I can find there.

There's blood pouring out from my thumb. Shit. How the hell did that happen?

I appear to have sliced right into my thumb with my razor, while shaving my legs. A new achievement, even for someone with my levels and experience of not focusing while using dangerous implements.

Still, the droplets mesmerise me, as fast as I wipe as it, a fresh sea of red rises to the top, spilling over. Maybe this is what I need. To bleed myself clean.

I tried that before, tried to bleed myself clean of this whole thing. Its success depends upon your perspective I guess. When I'm being me, when I'm being normal, when I'm being as I've made myself be through life, it was a success. I had to do it, there was no other option, and no really plausible other way to do it.

But every time I let Carter get too close to me again, let him in slightly further than I intended to, or he pulls a couple of bricks out of one of the holes in the walls around me which I haven't quite finished repairing yet, I wonder.

If it wasn't the right thing, if there was some other way, any other way for it to have been dealt with, what difference would that have made? Would it have been better, could it have all been better than this?

And what would he say? Think and feel? What scares me most is the idea that I know what this would do to him, and I can't do this to him. Can't hurt him that way.

So I throw the razor against the wall. The agent of all the blood-letting, and while I'd like to that to every parasite that bleeds us I can't. So I have to get my satisfaction from the smaller affairs. It leaves a crooked streak of brown-red against the faded colour tiles, and I think it looks a lot like my mind must do.

I can hear Carter outside; he must have heard the razor hit the wall.

"What's happened?"

"Nothing. I've just cut myself shaving. I'm fine."

Yes Abby, because a thud made by a plastic razor hitting cold tiles sounds exactly like a yelp of pain made when I cut myself. John doesn't expect me to be particularly logical, thank god. That's never going to happen.

"You sure? Want me to check it?"

"No, seriously John, I'm fine. I'll be out in a minute. Make me some coffee?"

"You drink too much of that stuff!" His voice ends on a laugh, so I know he's not offended. He'll still want to check it when I come out though.

He's gone, his padding footsteps on the carpet have retreated in the direction of the kitchen, and I'm glad. He's not right here to worry about me, worry me, try to understand and get me to explain and ask questions and demand answers and work it all out. Because I'm not sure I can bear it, but I can't bear this. He's not in my system any more, I don't know if he ever can be again, because I've bleed him out, but maybe the means have destroyed the end. For now the end has gone forever I suddenly seem to need it. I need him, I know I do, and I need to not need him so much more. This is destroying me and I'm destroying him and how can it all be worth it when we pay the price in so much blood.

And it's still gushing, running dry, flooding my skin. There's red on white, blood on porcelain, and it's all happening again, all over again, and it's all my fault all over again.

I wonder how many pieces I'll need to pick up to mend this, how much superglue I'll need to use, whether I'll run out like I did before, and whether it'd just to easier to leave everything lying around me, broken and smashed, and stare with the most morbid and masochistic type of fascination as everything crumbles in upon it's foundations.

~*~

_And I'll do anything to keep her here tonight   
And I'll say anything to make her feel alright  
And I'll be anything to keep her here tonight  
Cause I want you to stay, with me  
I need you tonight  
  
___

~*~*~*~

**Author's Notes:** The title translates as 'tormented dreamers'. The song from which all the little quotations in italics between scenes is taken is 'In The Arms Of Sleep' by Smashing Pumpkins. Because the song rocks, the lyrics are beautiful, and it fits perfectly with both the relationship at this stage of the story and Carby in general, as has been stated by many others before.

The scene in Italics is a flashback; it's a piece from the time when (in this story) it all started to go wrong, and what's causing their problems here.

Hopefully there'll be no more 4 month breaks between chapters. Grovelling apologies on crawling knees again for that.

And, another note, which I was going to put up the top but my dedications became just a bit long: I do have the 8 chapters and epilogue of this thing pretty much planned out, so please bear in mind these three things whatever happens in the next chapters:

1) I am a sucker for happy endings

2) I love angst

3) All good, and interesting, relationships have a lot of both ;-)


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